4/29/2009 @ 12:01AM

America's Most Reputable Companies

Would you recommend that a friend buy medicine from
Johnson & Johnson
? Insurance from
AIG
? Do you trust
Google
?

These are the kinds of questions people answered about 153 American companies for the Reputation Institute, a private research and consulting firm. The Reputation Institute ranked these companies on how esteemed, admired, trusted and liked each was, based on its surveys of the general public.

As it turned out,
Johnson & Johnson
blew the others out of the water. Its pulse score, a 0 to 100 rating, was 83.58. That is 2.49 higher than
Kraft Foods
, which ranked second on the list.

Johnson & Johnson has bounced around in the top 10 for a several years now. It tumbled from second place in 2006 to fourth in 2007. It jumped back up to second last year. This year, its pulse score is up just 0.10 (a statistically insignificant change). So it may have to thank
Google
for relinquishing the top spot to it.

Google ranked first last year, but that wasn’t really Johnson & Johnson’s doing. Google’s pulse score fell more than six points, from 85.23 to 78.80. The tumble dropped Google to eighth place. In fact, you have to look at the bottom 20 on the list just to find a larger drop in score. Still, having the eighth best reputation in the U.S. is nothing to complain about.

How does the ranking work? The Reputation Institute collected survey data on 600 companies globally, gathering its U.S. data in January and February. Only individuals in a company’s home country and familiar with the company could rate it. So Americans rated only American companies they knew about.

This might have slanted things a little, since many Americans aren’t too keen on anyone in their banking and finance industry right now. The three largest drops in pulse scores were
AIG
(-27.52),
Goldman Sachs
(-17.31), and
Morgan Stanley
(-13.11).

Not surprisingly, AIG dropped almost to the very bottom of the list. However, it still doesn’t have as poor a reputation as
Halliburton
. Halliburton was up 3.48 this year, to 27.47.

Biggest Losers

2009 Pulse

2008 Pulse

Change

AIG

34.27

61.79

-27.52

Goldman Sachs

49.81

67.12

-17.31

Morgan Stanley

52.20

65.31

-13.11

Pacific Gas and Electric

51.91

63.81

-11.91

General Motors

55.63

63.07

-7.44

Citigroup

46.00

53.40

-7.40

Google

78.80

85.23

-6.44

Chubb

59.58

64.88

-5.30

Hartford Financial Services

61.34

66.16

-4.82

Xerox

73.82

78.44

-4.62

It’s not all bad for financials, though. A few in the sector saw significant reputation gains this year.
Bank of America
(+7.96) and
US Bancorp
(+8.28) had some of the biggest jumps on the list.

Even those bounds were dwarfed by
Wal-Mart
and
Dow Chemical
, though. Wal-Mart moved up 12.16 to a pulse score of 65.17. Without this rise, Wal-Mart would have been ranked 142nd , but its boost in reputation brought it to 84th place–a very impressive change within one year.

Dow Chemical gets the prize for most improved overall, though. The company’s pulse score came in at 63.95, a full 13.31 points ahead of its score from last year. That got it to 97th on the list. Patti Temple Rocks, Dow vice president for global public affairs, brand and reputation, says, “We attribute this in part to the comprehensive brand and reputation-building efforts the company has undertaken in the past several years. We are looking forward to continued positive trajectory in 2010.”

Biggest Gainers

2009 Pulse

2008 Pulse

Change

Dow Chemical

63.95

50.64

13.31

Wal-Mart

65.17

53.01

12.16

TJX Companies

64.69

55.35

9.33

Koch USA

68.90

60.48

8.41

US Bancorp

62.46

54.18

8.28

Altria

52.50

44.31

8.19

Bank of America

58.90

50.94

7.96

Sears

69.45

61.80

7.66

Microsoft

78.05

70.52

7.53

Verizon Communications

63.53

56.25

7.28

Two newcomers to the list were the online retailer Amazon and the hygiene products company
Kimberly-Clark
. Kimberly starts strong at 14th, with a pulse score of 77.47, and Amazon ranked 20th, with a pulse score of 75.74.

You might wonder why this or that company isn’t part of the list. The Reputation Institute focused solely on companies engaged in commercial activities and with reasonably high familiarity among the public. Wholly owned subsidiaries weren’t included either.

Ultimately, reputations among American companies are relatively stable. Some 75% of the companies on the list underwent changes of less than five to their pulse scores. In fact, median reputation among American companies has gone up in the last year from 64.54 to 66.31.

Reputation Institute data show that a good reputation is good for business. Among the companies in the top 10 on the list, six of 10 people would recommend them to others. Among those in the bottom 10, only two would put in a good word, while three would outright boycott the company.